Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
by Zayz
Summary: Hameron-ish. Cameron attends House's funeral, then Wilson's. At Wilson's, she meets a ghost, shares a cigarette, and gets the closure that has always eluded her.


A/N: I know it's been a long time since House ended. But that finale (and the lovely Jennifer Morrison's part in it) is still on my mind and all these months later, my muse never really let go of this story idea. I needed a little more closure. Particularly because there's no season premiere to look forward to this year, and also because I recently began to rewatch the series and was hit with a barrage of unexpected Hameron feels. So, this happened.

I hope you guys like it. I hope people still read House fan fiction. I hope there are still Hameron fans out there, because really, it's a great ship, even if it was doomed from the start.

Cheers. And please remember to review.

* * *

**Fruit of the Poisonous Tree  
By: Zayz**

If I could bend your pain  
Into something good  
Make you a prouder man  
If I could rough you up  
And save you with good luck  
And show you hope again  
It's true  
The only fault I've found in you  
is not being free to take what I would give

If I could make you stay  
Convince you you'd be lost  
If we were torn apart  
If it remained unclear  
Between the two of us  
Which one would be the one  
To break the others heart

- Rachael Yamagata, "The Only Fault"

* * *

Cameron gets the news in the form of a letter delivered to her at work. It's hand-written – she recognizes Wilson's hand – and, in unapologetic black ink, it announces the date and time for House's funeral. At the bottom of the letter, there is a request for her RSVP. The deadline is in two days.

And for a second, it's like her heart has stopped, her brain has gone cold, her nerves have shriveled up and her stomach has cannon-balled into her intestines. She has to read the letter twice before she can believe it.

After all this time, these three silent years in which she has had to rebuild her life, there it is, her past, unable to stay in the neatly-packed boxes she has made for it, reaching its claws through time and space, grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around, around, around. She is dizzy and disoriented and has to take a ten minute break to process this.

The news is like a lightning strike in the middle of a cornfield. Because lightning doesn't strike in cornfields. Lightning strikes in high places and Cameron is in the lowlands, quiet and content in Chicago, coasting along like people do when they are happy – and yet, there is this letter. Inviting her to House's funeral.

She goes to the bathroom and washes her face. The makeup streaks and drips away into the sink and for a second, she finds herself again. Not the woman married to Nick, not the mother of Sam – but _Cameron_, the one who worked for House. The one who endured the sleepless nights and the verbal abuse, who often had to pile on the powder in the morning to hide the bags under eyes – the one who was alive, and dynamic, and challenging. The one who learned to toughen up. The one who ran away.

She has spent so long trying to escape this woman woman. But there she is in the bathroom mirror. Staring at her. Daring her to make a move, daring Cameron to call her a name other than her own.

She stands there for several long, still minutes. Then finishes washing off the rest of the makeup, and goes back outside, letter clutched in her hand.

* * *

She agonizes about what to do. The funeral is in five days. She has to respond back to Wilson by the day after tomorrow. She has to book her plane ticket to Princeton and make arrangements for Sam. She has to get her heart in order because currently, it's a complete mess.

_Is it worth going?_ That's the question she has to ask herself. _Would it really be a good idea? See Wilson and Cuddy again? And Chase?_

But of course, it's a futile question with weak arguments in its favor.

Of course she's going. She emails Wilson within ten minutes saying yes.

* * *

Naturally, Nick asks where she's going in such a hurry and why. Cameron says it's House, he has died, and his funeral is in a few days.

Nick's normally pleasant autumn eyes go shadowy. He remembers the stories about House. He asks her if she wants company. His mother lives close by; they can leave Sam with her. And for a second, Cameron is tempted, because this is not something she looks forward to facing alone.

But she tells him no. This is something she does have to do alone. She books her ticket and begins packing a bag.

* * *

It's been two and a half years, but she knows Princeton like a conditioned rat knows the maze it ran in everyday. She drives on autopilot through the familiar streets. She even stops by the hospital for a little while. She doesn't go in, but she sits in the parking lot, staring at the building, lost in memories.

She had heard, about a year ago, that Cuddy had resigned from Princeton Plainsboro. That Foreman was now running it. She remembers smirking when she read that, because of course Foreman would go for Cuddy's job the moment she relinquished it. Foreman had always been very ambitious.

Of course, she can't see any of those changes from the outside. All she can see is the slowly sinking sun on the horizon, the small figures through the windows, wearing scrubs, walking urgently, sometimes talking to one another. And it's amazing, how this place can remain so remarkably unchanged when she is unrecognizable.

This was it. This was the place where she got the fellowship that changed her life. The place she sometimes never left at night, because there was so much work to do. The place where she fell in love with Chase. The place where she fell in love with House.

Because she had loved House. Not in the high school crush kind of way, not in the hot-for-teacher kind of way – although there were notes of both in there, if she was honest with herself – but in that cavernous, aching kind of way. She loved him in every way. He infuriated her, and she knew he had faults, profound ones. But he was the one who inspired her. Who made her smarter. Who made her wiser.

She remembers trying to explain House to Nick, back when they were engaged and she knew she had to tell him everything. It was hard enough to explain Chase, and their clumsy four-year dance. But with House, she didn't even know where to start framing the narrative. She didn't know how to explain that House was everything to her. Their story was entwined in her deepest marrow, in the very fabric of her DNA. He was all tangled up in everything that mattered to her. She still does all her reasoning on a white-board in her office. And she never did stop missing him, even as she moved on with her life.

A little pressure builds up behind her eyes, as she turns her attention towards her steering wheel and drives out of the hospital parking lot.

* * *

The funeral is simple and intimate and terribly, terribly sad. Indeed, the whole team is there – Foreman, Chase, Taub, Thirteen. It's like she's back in time, to another life, but not really. Every one of them is different. Chase's hair is short, and his eyes have seen much tragedy since the last time she saw him. The lines of Taub's face are deeper than before, and he has apparently fathered two children with two different women. Foreman has Cuddy's job; the confidence radiates unmistakably off of him. Thirteen's hair is short and blonde, and she too looks haggard.

Cameron hugs House's mother and her boyfriend. She hugs Wilson, who is so obviously shaken and grieving. She is surprised, but also not surprised, that Cuddy isn't present. Wilson tells her that Cuddy never replied to his invitation.

Everyone speaks, including her. It goes like a blur, a sickening, dreamlike blur. And when it's over, it doesn't really feel over. It feels as though any minute, House will come limping out from behind a curtain, saying something sarcastic and funny and more than a little bit mean, because that is who he is – who he was – and it's strange to imagine he isn't here anymore.

All the years she knew House, all the times she has seen him suffer and do stupid things and abuse his body – and she never quite figured out that House was, indeed, human. That he was a physical being who could die, leave this world forever, like any other mortal.

The funeral wraps up after an embarrassing interruption from Wilson's phone, and everybody leaves, but it doesn't feel closed. It doesn't feel real. House's famous gut instinct has rubbed off on Cameron and she knows without really knowing, that this isn't quite over yet.

She goes home with the vague sense of anticipation – that it's only a matter of time before something else happens and draws her back to Princeton like the deluded moth who thinks that this time, finally, something decent will come from returning to the flame that swallows it whole.

* * *

Five months later, she gets another invitation, this one from one of Wilson's ex-wives. Now, it is Wilson's turn to leave this Earth and have a funeral. She has to buy another ticket to Princeton, and make more arrangements for Nick and Sam. Nick doesn't understand Wilson as well as he understands House, but he doesn't ask any questions and she is grateful for that.

This funeral is more polished, more beautiful, and less intimate than House's funeral. Obviously some effort went into finding flowers, organizing a gathering in a lovely park. People speak eloquently of a kind, exceptional man who died before his time. This is a well-attended funeral full of people with things to say. Yet, somehow, this feels less somber than House's funeral. Maybe it's all the flowers and well-dressed people, but it has a veneer that House's funeral didn't have.

She can't quite put her finger on it, but the feel is different and she isn't sure what to make of that.

* * *

Cameron was never one to believe in ghosts, but there is a presence here that unsettles her, makes the fine hairs at the back of her neck go cold and stand at attention. She searches the area, during and after the service, but she doesn't see anything that would explain this feeling, this punch of intuition that tells her something is awry.

She appears to be the only one who notices it. She reconnects with the same coworkers that attended House's funeral – Foreman, who regularly glances at his buzzing Blackberry, and Taub, who had to bring his daughters along and tries to tranquilize them with sugar, and Thirteen, who looks worse than ever, most likely reaching the end of her own time, and Adams and Park, the newest additions to House's team, shortly before he died. Cuddy, who came to this one but not House's, who looks stricken and tired and thin and not herself, who comes right on time but leaves early.

And Chase. Chase, whose hair is cut different but whose eyes hint at troubles she will never know. Chase, who is gracious but uncomfortable when they end up at the drinks table, sipping on fruit punch.

He has House's job, he tells her, running Diagnostics at Princeton Plainsboro. And she isn't surprised, because out of all of them, Chase was the one who learned the most from House. Foreman was too ambitious, too afraid of becoming his boss; Taub was weighed down by personal problems; Thirteen had a time-bomb taped to her brain; the new girls barely knew him. Chase would do well. The choice made sense.

"House's desk was a mess," he says. "He left a lot of crap behind."

"Do you still use the whiteboard?"

He smirks, tries to pass it off as casual, but she can see the affection there. "Yeah. We do."

She wishes him well – honestly, with no bitterness – because there just isn't room for Chase inside of her anymore. He was like a rebound after her first husband, and he was there for her in a way he didn't mean to be but was anyway, and she learned a lot from their relationship, but she had never been sure about him. Their relationship was tainted by House, and by her own deep insecurities, and it wasn't until she met Nick that she realized she'd made the right decision, finally walking away instead of limping on the way she did when he proposed.

Nick was a fresh start, someone she _was _sure about. And under his watch, slowly, slowly, the last remnants of confusion and hurt from Chase – so hardened and sharp inside of her, like a kidney stone that couldn't move – dissolved at last and got washed away.

Cameron does wish Chase well. She hopes the job doesn't rough him up too bad. She hopes it doesn't change him too much. She hopes that he can get out unscathed. She hopes it, but she doesn't believe it. Not really. Chase was always House's protégé, no matter how much the both of them denied it. Chase will faithfully carry on House's tradition, broaden and poison the minds of young doctors yearning to prove themselves.

It's over between them and she isn't sorry. She lays him down to rest as well, the last of those memories, and helps herself to more fruit punch.

* * *

The funeral is over around twilight, and everyone is heading back to their cars. But Cameron still has that feeling, of ghosts watching from behind the trees, and lingers back to investigate. It was nagging at her, and instinct told her to stay, find answers.

She locates her ghost about ten feet away, behind a tree, smoking a cigarette, a thin stream of smoke rising through the branches and the leaves towards the stars.

House.

She accidentally steps on a branch, which makes a noise that startles him. He turns around and finds her, her blonde hair almost glowing in the fading daylight, her bright eyes like gemstones.

Though her frantically-beating heart would beg to differ, she actually isn't surprised. This is very like her former boss to do. Fool everyone, turn up some place unexpected, always surpassing anyone's expectations.

"You're not dead." She kicks the branch aside and comes to stand before him, arms crossed.

"It would appear that I am not," he confirms, taking another drag of his cigarette.

"Your funeral was five months ago."

"I know."

"Did Wilson know?"

The cigarette glows orange, casting strange shadows on his eyes. His electric-blue eyes, that so unnervingly seem to look right through her. "Yeah. He knew."

"Everyone thinks you're dead."

He shrugs, like this doesn't bother him.

"You were supposed to have died in that burning building."

"I got out."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?"

He smirks. "And here I was thinking maybe you grew out of being a moron."

He offers her a cigarette, and she considers declining, but she surprises them both by accepting it anyway. He lights it for her and together they smoke, drinking in the sight of the other, two thin streams of smoke rising, rising.

"So…what have you been doing since you died?"

He shrugs again. Clearly he doesn't want to talk about it. But she still wants to know. If his (apparently fake) funeral taught her anything, it's that life goes on and she is probably never going to see him again. This time is strange and unexpected but precious, and she doesn't want to waste it.

"Seriously," she probes. "Were you with Wilson?"

"Yeah," he says at last, most unwillingly. "He knew he only had a few months."

He finishes off the last of his cigarette, then reaches into his pocket. He produces that horribly familiar orange bottle of pills, and dry-swallows three without even blinking. She stares in disbelief.

"_Vicodin_?"

He nods.

"_Still_?"

He nods again, and gets to work lighting another cigarette. She shakes her head.

"House, I thought you were clean."

"You thought wrong."

She watches him chain-smoke four cigarettes in a row, just watching him quietly, her own unfinished in her hand. There is something about him, something about the set of his mouth as he sucks hard on the cigarettes, about his averted eyes. She knows he is aging, but he looks terrible, his hair – what's left of it – thinning and gray. He has lost a lot of weight and there are shadows around his eyes, giving the appearance of cavernous caves with turquoise light hidden deep inside. He looks so different from the man she left two years ago.

Then something clicks. As he starts his fifth cigarette, she says, so soft the wind almost carries the words away, "You miss him already, don't you."

He looks up.

"Wilson. You miss him."

He puffs the cigarette, takes a breath. He looks like he's considering a snappy retort, but then he just looks tired again. "He's my best friend. Of course I miss him." It's a simple, achingly honest observation.

"You stayed through the worst of the cancer." She swallows thickly, tears suddenly and bizarrely welling up. "I know that's hard."

He stays motionless, like he's too afraid to say anything, for fear it might betray something real and personal. She has no such qualms. She wipes her eyes and crosses her arms, not because the night is getting cooler but because she wants to protect that sad, ruined part of her heart that will never, never heal.

They have this in common now. Watching someone they love more than anything or anyone die of cancer. She puts her hand to his shoulder, and he looks at her like she's burned him.

"I'm sorry," she says, and she means it.

He looks so tired. He doesn't say anything but something in him seems to deflate. She's never seen him like this before, so broken down, so small and vulnerable. It's like the illusion is falling away and something more beautiful and more terrible lies in the ashes.

He finishes his cigarette, and stomps it out with his shoe. She didn't finish her cigarette, but she stomps her out too. The two butts lie together in the dirt, crumpled and undone. They stand there a little while longer, and she is bursting with things to say and ask him and tell him – questions about Wilson, those rumors she heard about Cuddy, stories about her husband and her job and her baby – but nothing in her head seems important enough to break this silence. It's the most honest conversation they've ever had, really. Standing here in this little grove of trees, missing people who have gone to places far better and stranger than this one.

She drops her hand from his shoulder and wipes her eyes again. "I won't tell anyone I saw you," she says.

"Thank you." He says it so quietly, barely louder than a murmur.

"Where are you going to go from here?"

He glances up at the sky, then the ground, then right at her. "I don't know."

"I'm in Chicago. Chicago Mercy Hospital. Give me a call if you need anything."

He nods, even though they both know he won't.

She chews her lip, uncrosses her arms and lets them fall limply to her sides. They share the silence a little longer, as the night grows darker over their heads. He doesn't smoke or take any more pills, even though she knows he wants to, because that's what he does when he's in pain, drowns the humanity under a barrage of toxic chemicals.

She takes a deep breath, then looks him in the eye and says, "I did love you, you know."

He holds her gaze quite bravely. His eyes are somber. "I know."

The impulse she's had for as long as she's known him is still there, still strong. The protector in her wants to swoop in and save him from everything, including himself. Take him under her wing and nurse him back to health and make him feel all right again. She wants to fix him because he's hurt and that is her job and her instinct, to help.

She's tried so many times to save him, but he's too far gone for that. He has made his choices and he has been hurt and even though she wants nothing else so much, she can't save him. She doesn't have the tools and he won't even let her try. Some wounds just run too deep.

Like the last time she left him, she puts out her hand. And this time, he waits a beat and then takes it, his hand warm and firm and wrinkled, entwined with hers.

She pulls him in close then, wraps her other arm around him in a hug, and though he doesn't reciprocate, he doesn't push her away either. She can feel him in blazing detail – the roughness of his coat, the warmth of him underneath it, his thinness and his hurt and the damage that he sustains. And he still smells the same. Behind the smoke, there is that sharp, spicy, slightly musty scent that reminds her of his favorite scotch, of late nights and cold take-out, of gray New Jersey mornings, getting up to go to work, functioning on no sleep. He smells like another life. She realizes that despite everything, she really has missed him terribly, and is immeasurably glad to know that he is alive, for however long.

She kisses his prickly cheek for what she knows is the last time and then she lets go. She knows this is much sadder for her than it is for him, but she could swear she sees something like grief in him too – not for Wilson, but for her, the one who left him rather than the other way around.

It's over now. She can't drag it out anymore. She turns around and walks away, because no matter how long she stays, it's never going to be enough. He is that flame and she is that moth, the one who isn't programmed to stay away. So she tears herself away and begins the endless walk back to her car.

Of course, she can't help a glance back, and of course, he knew that about her – so when she does look back, he is wearing that look that says, "you poor, predictable sap." He has always found her bleeding heart amusing, inconvenient, and more than a little pathetic.

But there's something more complicated in that look of his. In it, she also finds a layer that says, "I wish you well."

Maybe she imagined it, but that's what she saw and what she wants to believe. That's her story and she's sticking to it. Because he probably does wish her well. He's never had any reason not to.

She gets about fifty yards away, stomping through the grass, past the bushes and trees and flowers and the leftovers of the funeral, but she can't resist yet another look back. Poor, predictable sap indeed. But this time, he's gone.

She exhales slowly, then turns around and leaves in earnest.

* * *

She is quiet all evening, as she returns to the hotel and packs her bag for the next day. She's still bathed in the bittersweet afterglow of seeing someone who means so much but has never been capable of anything more. She has always wondered, in quiet moments, what would have happened if she had stayed with House all those years ago. If she had stayed with Chase and with the team, and solved the cases, and remained tangled up in House's twisted games.

Would she have survived it? Or would someone unrecognizable wear her clothes and work her day? Sometimes, she thinks yes. Other times, she thinks no. In truth, she will never know. She made her choices like he made his, and there's no space left for what if's.

Because she knows now, after years of turning it over and over and over in her head, that she was the fruit of the poisonous tree. House spread the recklessness, and the stubbornness, and he taught them how to blur the lines between right and wrong and okay and acceptable, and step all over them. And he hurt them, he did, even if it was to make them better. But even though she did love him, even though she didn't leave without getting hurt, Cameron was the fruit that fell far from the tree, escaped with her soul remaining her own. The rest of them – Foreman, Chase, Taub, Thirteen, Cuddy – they still bear the damage he left behind. She remembers them from both funerals, so exhausted and worn and sad.

But she, she was the one that got away. She is married with a beautiful little baby, far away from Princeton and the wreckage left behind there.

Her flight is early in the morning. She boards it knowing instinctively that she will never come back here again. She has her closure and her peace and there's just nothing left for her here anymore. Her life is waiting for her in Chicago.

House would have said it was so boring, so anticlimactic, for her to work in emergency medicine and come home to her family and white picket fence every night. He would have said she was capable of much, much more. And maybe she is.

But she knows that this perhaps little life is enough for her. She drives twenty miles over the speed limit and collapses gratefully into Nick's waiting arms.

Because here, she is happy. Here, she is home.

* * *

A/N: I would love it if you could review and tell me what you think.


End file.
